


Everybody's Got a Reason

by dante_alicheery



Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Cross-Posted on FanFiction.Net, Gen, Iris Finds Out, Pre-Relationship, fixing friendships, slightly melodramatic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-22
Updated: 2014-11-22
Packaged: 2018-02-26 14:14:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,049
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2655014
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dante_alicheery/pseuds/dante_alicheery
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It doesn't matter how Iris finds out, it's that she does. And, predictably, she's pissed. Not at Barry, though she’s plenty angry at him too, but at her father, for insisting she needs to be kept in the dark.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Everybody's Got a Reason

**Author's Note:**

> One-shot written post 1x05 because I hate it, HATE IT, when female characters-slash-love interests are left in the dark for their "own protection," as if they aren't adults and able to take care of themselves, or keep a secret, or whatever the excuse-du-jour is. (Seriously, I get where Joe was coming from, but Iris has every right to know what's going on with her best friend.) And I figured Iris would be just as angry about it as I am. 
> 
> Title comes from "Find My Way Back" by Michelle Branch.

Predictably, Iris is pissed when she finds out. 

Not at Barry, though she’s plenty angry at him too, but at her father. 

Her father, who had the _nerve_ to get pissed at her for dating Eddie when he was keeping this secret from her. Her father, who forbid her from doing what she had actually wanted to do with her life— follow him and Barry into the police force, to help people. To make a difference. And here, she could have made a difference again, she could have helped, and his desperate crusade to make sure she is Safe at All Costs has stopped her yet again. 

How dare he, she rages, screaming at the top of her lungs at him, while he can’t even meet her eyes. How dare he decide what she does and does not need to know about Barry. How _dare_ he think that her "safety" justifies leaving her in ignorance, when it meant Barry— her best friend in the entire world— had to lie to her face time and time again. When it meant that she wasn’t able to give him all the support and understanding she’d been giving him since they were kids. 

What was next, she thinks, half hysterically. Being forbidden from driving because of how many people died in car crashes a year? From walking around at night because she might be mugged? The anger builds up and up, a maelstrom in her chest, frustrated tears forming in the corners of her eyes.

“You think I would have kept up the blog if I had known?” she shouts, her hands fisted at her sides so she doesn’t reach for the nearest Jitters mug, sitting right there on the coffee shop’s counter. She’s just washed it, she reasons. Breaking it would be counterproductive. “The blog that, coincidentally, sent people after him and even after me because, of what he could do? All this time, I could have been helping him keep his secret, covering for him when he needed it; just fucking listening to him…” her voice breaks, but she quickly recovers “when there was someone he couldn’t save. You know Barry— he has a savior complex the size of a skyscraper, and the guilt to go with it! —and I wasn’t there for him, because you thought I couldn’t _possibly_ get hurt if I didn’t know! Newsflash, _Dad_ , I'm hurt.”

“I was trying to protect you,” Detective West protests, again, though there’s no power to his voice. 

“So you had good intentions,” she snarls. “We all know what happens with those. God, I can’t even… I can’t even look at you right now.”

So she throws the keys to the coffee shop at his chest and brushes past him. She pauses just long enough at the door to tell him to lock up when he leaves, and she storms out, not even bothering to return her apron to the rack. 

And she just starts running, hoping the rage will leak out as the adrenaline rushes in, as the oxygen echoes in her lungs and her throat starts to burn. Her purse— something she did manage to grab— is thumping rhythmically against her side, and she can hear the rattle of the headache medicine she keeps in there, the jangle of her keys, over the pulse of her heart in her ears.

She reaches the end of the street where the pavement gives way to the river, and stops, crouching so her hands are on her knees, trying to catch her breath. And it still feels as though she hasn’t run far enough.

She’s only there a minute before there’s the tell-tale whisper of movement behind her, but she doesn’t look up. She doesn’t need to.

God, she chides herself, how didn’t she put it together sooner? His presence had always felt familiar, not to mention certain vocal ticks, word preferences. The way he spoke about his speed when she finally cornered him into an interview had been so close to the excited technobabble she knew so well. But no, she had been so caught up in the excitement of something new, something strange and wonderful and completely impossible that she didn’t look behind it to see just how familiar it really was.

Stupid, she thinks. I’m so stupid. 

Barry comes up behind her, slowly now, for him, human-paced, and she thinks he’s trying not to spook her. Out of the corner of her eye, she can see he’s in his civvies, a worn pair of jeans, an argyle sweater vest. One she’s told him to throw out like six times, because those colors don’t do anything for him.

“I’m sorry,” he says, eventually, voice hoarse. As if he’s been crying, or has recently stopped. “I shouldn’t have pushed you away. I should have told you, I should have just…”

She straightens, then finally turns to look at him. His chin is dropped to his chest, his face twisted into that look of sorrow she knows so well, the look that makes her stomach turn into one hard lump and makes her own eyes pinprick with tears. “You were keeping a promise,” she says. “I understand. I’m still angry, mind you, but I understand.”

He’s still not looking at her, and she has to do something to shake the pall that’s fallen between them, to get them back to where they used to be, so she goes over and slips her hand in his. He has no choice but to look up after that, shock evident on his face.

“So,” she says, forcing cheerfulness into her voice. “Now that I know, you going to share with me all the sordid details, or do I have to interrogate them out of you?”

It’s then that he smiles. 

She leads him down the sidewalk along the river, marveling at how easily they fall back into step, at the way his hand fits in hers, as he goes back to the beginning: “Okay, so it all started with the STAR Labs particle-accelerator explosion…”

She finally has her best friend back, all the lies and prevarications gone between them. And yes, eventually she’ll forgive her father, but that, like everything else, will have to wait. She and Barry have a lot of catching up to do.


End file.
